The Official Twilight Parody Of The Couch Guy TikTok Is Bloody Brilliant
File this under things I didn't know I needed.
Whoever is running Lionsgate’s TikTok account deserves a raise. When the Couch Guy TikTok controversy went viral in late Sept. 2021, and the remakes started, plenty of popular accounts got in on the fun, but none did it as well as movie studio Lionsgate. They weren’t the first on the case (their video wasn’t posted until Oct. 6), but their Twilight parody of the Couch Guy TikTok was more than worth the wait.
ICYMI, Couch Guy, aka Robbie McCoy, is TikTok’s public enemy number one. The drama started when Couch Guy’s girlfriend, Lauren Zarras, shared a video of her surprising her boyfriend at school. (The two are sophomores in college and are in a long-distance relationship. McCoy is a student at the University of Virginia, and Zarras attends Purdue University.) Although these romantic surprise videos aren’t exactly new for TikTok, Zarras’ took off in an unexpected way.
In the clip, Couch Guy is surrounded by other girls when Zarras surprises him. And instead of jumping up to greet her right away, he leans forward and seems to grab his phone from the girl to his left. The video was awkward, and TikTok took notice. Comments poured in, questioning whether or not Couch Guy could be trusted. Many of them decided that he couldn’t be.
Soon, the Couch Guy re-enactments started. And, IMO, TikTok’s creativity has never been put to better use. But Lionsgate’s version of the Couch Guy TikTok has to be the best one yet. Using clips from Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1, the video used everyone’s favorite vampire-werewolf-human love triangle to echo the Couch Guy storyline.
In the TikTok, Jacob Black takes on the role of Lauren Zarras while Bella and Edward are Couch Guy and his female friends (and couch buddies), respectively.
The parody is... perfect, and I’m so happy my FYP was graced with it. But I’m even more grateful that the social media manager was given the go-ahead to post it. In a TikTok posted earlier that day, the Lionsgate account commented, “y’all should’ve seen this couch guy tik tok they wouldn’t let me post.” Cue the peer pressure.
A few hours later, the account (finally) posted in response to this comment, “SHOW US THE COUCH GUY TIKTOK YOU MADE.” Their caption was, fittingly, “i convinced my boss.” Considering the video has racked up over 5 million views, 1.3 million likes, and 25,000 comments, the risky post definitely paid off.
BRB, sending Lionsgate’s social team a gift basket.
